


It's a Phase

by Donatello7



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Team Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 14:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2112741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donatello7/pseuds/Donatello7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life for Rocket is like being a point on a wheel. Sometimes he’s up in the air and unstoppable, and sometimes he’s being pressed down into the mud and excrement on the road.</p>
<p>Today is a mud day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Phase

It’s a phase, and like all phases it will be over soon.

Life for Rocket is like being a point on a wheel. Sometimes he’s up in the air and unstoppable, and sometimes he’s being pressed down into the mud and excrement on the road.

Today is a mud day.

His whole body aches, each limb seeming to have gained about a stone in weight overnight.

 

_Beast_

 

Even opening his eyes is an effort, and he knows that today is a particularly bad day, a day when even getting out of bed is going to be a medal worthy achievement, as he sighs and yawns and presses his face back into the mattress, numbness and electricity fogging his skull and seeping as moisture into his blurred vision. The sob is more of a hiccup.

 

_Vermin_

 

He just wants to drag the blanket back over his head and stay there until either he dies or the last sun explodes, whichever is sooner.

The galaxy will be better off without him.

But the alarm is beeping. Groot needs to be watered now.

 

_Failed Experiment._

 

Groot needs him now.

 

_Useless_

 

It hurts, but he forces himself up, half falls down the ladder to the ground. He lands heavy. Feels heavy. Considers just sinking the rest of the way to the cold metal floor.

 

_Cold Metal Lab Table_

 

He is not conscious of his journey to the galley. He stumbles slightly, dragging his feet across the floor.

 

_Nothing_

 

Groot is sleeping as Rocket drags himself up onto the table beside the pot. He checks the sunlamp, and runs a gentle finger across Groot’s leaves to make sure he isn’t too hot or brittle. Then he takes the watering can, fills it, and pours the contents liberally. Perhaps too liberally, he isn’t really concentrating. Groot doesn’t wake up, allowing Rocket a moment afterwards to just watch him sleep. It’s calming, soothing almost, seeing his friend grow and heal. And because Groot can’t see him, Rocket doesn’t have to worry about hiding stuff. He’s allowed a moment of release where he is comforted by companionship, tear stained fingertips gently turning the soil, but also alone and unjudged by another. Safe.

Rocket is quite capable of judging himself. He doesn’t need the galaxy joining in.

He runs his finger across the leaf one more time, then climbs down from the table with another heavy thud. He leaves the watering can in the middle of the galley. He’ll only need to get it back out again later so why put it away? He doesn’t have the energy. He should probably eat. He isn’t hungry or thirsty. He just wants to hide away somewhere. But he’s probably better off staying in the galley in case Groot needs him. But the others will be here soon.

He can’t decide where to go. So he doesn’t move. He’s under the galley table, curled up in a ball, and Groot is sleeping above him, and the scientists might not think to look under here. Scientists! No they’ve found him. No. He wakes up with a gasp, and then turns over so that he is looking out into the galley, trying not to think about how he is trembling.

The galaxy will be better off without Rocket today.

  
  


Later, when the fog has cleared, he will realise that Groot was pretending to be asleep in the pot.

  
  


The alarm beeps again three hours later, and Rocket wants to throw it at the wall in frustration. Wants to throw himself out of the airlock. No, he owes this to Groot. He has to get up.

He is vaguely aware of movement around him, and he should probably open his eyes.

There is a crash, pieces clatter to the ground, and the alarm stops. Later, Rocket will learn that Drax couldn’t figure out how to switch it off. So he improvised.

“Easy, buddy. Go back to sleep. Gamora’s got Groot covered.”

“What is she covering our young friend with?”

“It’s...never mind, Drax.” Quill sighs. “You need anything, Buddy?”

Rocket looks at him with half lidded, dull eyes, but doesn’t reply. Instead he settles back into the mattress (When did he get back to his bunk?), and watches as Quill gets to work picking up the pieces of the alarm clock. Eventually, Rocket closes his eyes, and he decides that he is imagining Drax gently arranging the blankets around him

Drax doesn’t do gentle, the alarm clock is testament to that. But then, he was also a father once.

  
  


Rocket talks in his sleep. Groot told him that once.

  
  


It’s a phase, and like all phases it will be over soon.

Life for Rocket is like being a point on a wheel. Sometimes he’s up in the air and unstoppable, and sometimes he’s being pressed down into the mud and excrement on the road.

Today he is a little bit above the ground. His limbs are lighter, and he can think straighter. But everything is numb. He doesn’t hum while he works.

He sat on the floor surrounded by parts of Quill’s walkman. The jack socket is broken, so sound only comes out of one of the speakers on the headset. It’s simple enough to fix if you know what to do. Quill could do it himself, and Rocket knows that, and Quill knows that Rocket knows that. But this isn’t just about getting the walkman fixed.

This is Quill asking Rocket to work on one of his most precious possessions.

 

_Trust_

 

Tomorrow he will be a little higher, and soon he’ll be back to his real self, the confident, prickly, badass self who helps to save the galaxy on a semi regular basis. But this is the real him too, the one brought out by alcohol or fatigue or just whatever alignment the planets happen to be in that day, the one he keeps from the world for its own good and perhaps his own. Because he doesn’t need the world’s scorn, or its judgement. Because he is quite capable of hating himself.

But as they all watch Quill do a ridiculous dance to the music coming out of his now working headset, even the numbness can't stop the small smile that his lips form.

Later, the Awesome Mix Volume 2 has moved to the player, and Gamora of all people has joined Quill on the dance floor. Groot is dancing in his pot on the table, stopping whenever Drax looks up from sharpening his weapons. After a moment, Drax turns back to his knives, but not before he and Rocket make eye contact, and he gives the raccoon a small nod of acknowledgement.

 

_Worth_

 

Rocket’s vision blurs and he looks to the ground, silent, still as a statue. The others notice but say nothing, and he gets a feeling that they have been waiting for this moment. They simply turn down the music and sit cross legged on the floor, a circle around him. They sit and wait for him to start speaking. And he thinks that if they have to sit there all night then they will. But they don’t have too, because soon he is talking so fast that the words are all on top of each other, and he talks about pain and fear and nightmares and second guessing every look and smirk and flinch from everyone who meets him. The taunts. The names. The memories. Being torn apart and put back together over and over and over. How he can take on an army of soldiers no problem, but he goes into flight or fight mode at the sight of a petri dish.

How he never asked to be made.

How he sometimes wishes he had never been born.

Because what is the point of him.

A tiny hand touches his arm, and he looks down to find that Gamora has lifted Groot’s pot down from the table.

“mmm Grt.”

And then Rocket stops talking, and he wraps his arms around the pot and lets himself cry in front of everyone, and the circle gets that little bit smaller.

Because this is okay. He talked, they listened, and now it is okay. It has changed nothing.

Except it has also changed everything.

 

_Protected_

 

Because afterwards he feels lighter, and he thinks that the wheel is moving a little bit faster towards the top. When he finally does get back there, maybe it will slow down a little, and he can be his confident, prickly badass self for a while longer than usual.

But he knows now that if the wheel does take him back down, he won't need to hide it.

 

_Friendship_

 

 

 


End file.
